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Federal environmental regulators are investigating whether employees and inmates at the Topeka Correctional Facility in Topeka, Kansas were exposed to asbestos dust during building renovations.

Renovation of older buildings that contain asbestos tiles and insulation is a common route of workplace exposure to asbestos today. Breathing tiny asbsestos fibers can eventually cause lethal respiratory diseases including lung cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung or abdomen.

Bill Miskell, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said that EPA investigators were focused on renovation of one building, a prison dormitory, in 2005. Investigators have interviewed current and former employees of the women’s prison.

The Topeka Capital-Journal said that former workers involved in asbestos abatement activities said that improper exposure occurred during the rehabilitation of several buildings. Robert Ames, who performed heating and air maintenance at the women’s prison and supervised inmate crews involved in rehabilitating the prison, told the newspaper that asbestos dust covered clothing and clogged air filters when asbestos floor tiles were ground up with heavy machinery. Some workers wore paper masks while others had no protection.

Ames said that prison administrators received complaints about lax enforcement of asbestos safety regulations with irritation and disbelief.

Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson called the allegations alarming and said he endorsed the EPA investigation. “It does alarm me anytime we have an environmental problem in one of our state building, especially asbestos, which is an issue we’ve known about as a society for 30 years,” Parkinson told the newspaper.

Read the Capital-Journal article

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